Yesterday without any indication my Gmail account went into a lockout mode displaying this message when I try to login: Sorry... account maintenance underway We’re currently performing maintenance on your account. You won’t be able to log in while maintenance is underway, but your account data and messages are safe. Unfortunately, we can’t predict exactly — Continue reading »
Friend BP on YouTube
📆 June 13, 2010
Just happened to see this ad on YouTube. Don't get it. I wasn't BP's friend before, why would I want to be their friend now? What's next, friending Bin Laden and Kim Jong-il? — Continue reading »
Google Secure Search
📆 May 23, 2010
Google has begun experimenting with securing its search site using TLS/SSL. This is the https scheme used by many ecommerce sites to encrypt web traffic between browsers and servers and keep the data safe from eavesdroppers. Not only is the data encrypted, but clicking on any results will not send the referrer information to the — Continue reading »
Blocking Referrer (Referer) Header in Chrome
📆 May 17, 2010
I have been using the Google Chrome browser for quite a while now but the inability to block the Referrer header in Chrome has been a concern. Well, it was a concern until this past weekend when I got tired of waiting and wrote a Chrome extension to suppress it. I don't think Referer can — Continue reading »
Amazon Associates Account Suspension
📆 May 16, 2010
The email came at night, but it wasn't completely unexpected. In a terse missive, Amazon accused me of violating their Terms of Service (TOS) and terminated my account. Reasons given: copying pages and links to other sites and search engines. In other words spamming other sites with specific Amazon links tagged with my id to — Continue reading »
Hello WordPress, Goodbye Blogger
📆 April 29, 2010
Blogger recently announced the end of ftp publishing and after 7 years on that platform, I decided to migrate my blog to a self-hosted WordPress platform, and after a few days of tweaking the conversion is finally over. Yeah I know, the template looks nothing like WordPress. I actually had to "uglify" a classic template — Continue reading »
eBay Classifieds
📆 April 3, 2010
I just happened to do a drive-by eBay's homepage today and noticed a promotion for their new eBay Classifieds. The first thing that popped into my head was Craigslist competition. I'm not much of an eBayer and I've never used Craigslist, but I do know about the on-going feud between the two companies. eBay has — Continue reading »
Yahoo Publisher Network Ends
📆 March 31, 2010
Can't say I was surprised when today I received an email from Yahoo announcing the end of the Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN). Yahoo introduced YPN a few years ago as a competitive product to Google Adsense. Those are the text and graphic banners you see on many sites (including this page) with a small type — Continue reading »
Give a few Sats